Long-serving Crows administrator Bill Sanders has recounted how Adelaide’s 1997 Premiership helped put a pep back in South Australians’ steps.
Sanders spent two decades with Adelaide as General Manager, CEO and, later, Director and Chairman.
Speaking on AFC’s The History Locker: Hall of Fame podcast, Sanders said a rural tour showed him just what the Crows meant to South Australians.
He also shared how now-Chairman John Olsen helped Adelaide bring the Premiership joy across the state after the 1997 September win.
“The people in South Australia, (the Premiership) provided them with an enormous lift in confidence and wellbeing,” he said.
“I can remember standing on the stage of the Glasshouse in Melbourne… we’re presenting our players to all those (supporters) who came to Melbourne, so it was a fairly big crowd.
“I was standing just off stage with the premier of the day, who happened to be (current Adelaide Chairman) John Olsen.
“I said to John, ‘We’ll have to take this (Premiership Cup) to the regional centres of South Australia so all of our supporters in the country areas can share in the joy of this.
“He said, ‘Why are you telling me this?’.
“I said, ‘Well there’ll be some expense involved,’ and he said, ‘What are you talking about?’.
“I said, ‘Well I think we’ll need a plane, we’ll probably need expenses of about $10,000 to cover off what I need done’.”
“He said, ‘Yep, done’.”
Sanders and his Club toured the Premiership Cup everywhere from Mt Gambier to Ceduna.
“When the program was set, we’d get a lot of people ringing and saying, ‘While you’re in Lameroo could you come and see my sick aunt?’, or, ‘When you’re in Mt Gambier could you come and see Uncle Fred?’,” he said.
“What we found was when we’d go to these towns there were beds on the side of the street, from the nursing homes and the hospitals, and they’d arrange the schools to have the kids in classes.”
Of those Sanders met, one character remains etched in his mind - Mrs Binky.
“My assistant said, ‘I’ve got Mrs Binky on the phone from Kingscote, Kangaroo Island, she’s in hospital and she’d like you to come and visit’,” Sanders said.
“I said, ‘Look, it’s impossible to do that because of our schedule’.
“She said, ‘If you come and visit her there’s a bag of prawns in it for you’.
“We get to Kingscote. It was the last leg of a long, long day, and we’re in the Queenscliff Hotel and we’re up in the bar and I thought, ‘Mrs Binky!’.
“So I spoke to a local in the bar and said, ‘Do you know Mrs Binky? She’s up in the Kingscote Hospital’.
“So I grabbed the Cup and this fellow said he’d take me up there. I jumped in his Land Rover, it wasn’t far - was just up the hill - and scooted into the hospital.
“As I walked into the hospital with the Cup, I asked the girl at reception and she said, ‘Oh Mrs Binky yes, she’s expecting you’.
“I’m walking down the passage I look behind me and there’s nurses and doctors all trailing behind me, going to Mrs Binky’s room with me.
Mrs Binky, who had done her hair and makeup for the occasion, greeted Sanders by saying, ‘Hello Bill, I knew you’d come’.
“I put the Cup at the end of her bed and while I’m chatting to her I said, ‘There’s the Cup’, and her eyes lit up, she swung her legs out of the bed and hobbled around to pick up this Cup.
“She’s looking at it, admiring it, and as she’s done that the nurses and doctors have all looked amazed because they said she hadn’t been on her feet for about two months.
“I always call it ‘The Power of the Premiership’.”
But it wasn’t just Sanders who stuck to his word.
“As I was about to leave she said, ‘They’re under the bed’, and as I looked down there’s a bag of bloody prawns,” he said.
In the second episode of The History Locker: Hall of Fame, Sanders also spoke about managing some of the state’s biggest football names and the Crows’ first Showdown loss.
Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and on the afc.com.au website now.
